duchien

The Quarter has been gentrified for many years, and neither I (nor probably Fortius) are lamenting the passing away of slums, no matter the Romance (Street Car Named Desire). Rather, I lament the passing of a real neighborhood, with live-in residents, not investors. Dr. Albright actually lived in his home. And only a few short years ago I actually lived in mine, not far away. Fortius, again, says “Mr. Cage is not attempting to exploit his brief ownership of these…properties” – and I want to direct your attention to the telling adjective “brief” – too many owners with little or no connection to New Orleans, too many "flippers".

The appraisal of homes is always a function of selling price, but nowadays this is difficult to measure since so few offerings in the Quarter (or anywhere in town) sell at all. Appraisals go up and down, Miss Mary - its time they went down, and believe me, they will.

By the way, have you heard? …there’s a Recession in progress in the whole of the U.S. (no, New Orleans is not exempt) brought on by a “housing bubble”. Perhaps you don’t understand the word “bubble”…

Mr. Cage invested in NO real-estate, and is now eager to divest, as his recent free advertisement on the Letterman show makes clear. Another, comparable Prytania Street show-house which sold a few short years ago for $3 million recently resold under duress for $1 million. No wonder that Mr. Cage is hyping his property on national TV.

None of these celebrities actually live in their over-priced homes - they drive up prices, drive out locals, turn neighborhoods into time-share-zones.

Fortius hopes for a buyer for Mr. Cage's property with respect for the history of the LaLurie mansion AND $3.5 million. This imaginary buyer is surely "international", not local. Russ Albright would now be priced out of the market for his old home.

Too, Fortius sadly mentions the Quarter as a "whisper" of its former glory" - no longer a neighborhood, forlorn super-small condos at cut-rate prices for sale by the hundreds. Thank you, Dorian Bennett, for working so hard to destroy the city you pretend to love. (Not to single out the “international” Mr. Bennett - the profiteers at French Quarter Realty are as bad or worse).

Ragas and Strebcow are shills for the New Orleans Real Estate establishment. Isn’t there anyone at the Times-Picayune to do a little unbiased, independent investigation, rather than merely parrot another pep-talk by an industry cheer-leader?

1) Home sales plunged from 1900 the year before Katrina to 1200 – a 63% drop! This is truly an astounding figure.

2) “…the gap between the supply of homes on the market and the number of buyers looking to snatch them up has started to fall in recent months…”. Loaded phrases such as "snatch them up" contradict everything I know about the New Orleans home-market, where I’ve seen good homes (i.e., not absurdly priced) sitting on the market for two, three years.

3) “… the region has 68,000 fewer jobs today than it did in July 2005”. This fact alone is terrible news for the local economy, and can only exacerbate the housing downturn.

4) (Ragas) predicted “some trouble in the apartment sector in New Orleans”—which reminds me to ask why the glaring problems with condo sales in the Quarter (practically non-existent) are never mentioned by the “experts”?

5) Insurance is “high but palatable”, according to Mr. Sterbcow—another loaded phrase, since the primary meaning of “palatable" is positive—“agreeable to the palate or taste” or “pleasing or agreeable to the mind”. Sounds like people in New Orleans enjoy high insurance as much as a good meal at Galatoire's.

For what its worth - I lived in New York (Queens) until a few months ago and, yes, it is cheaper than NO. I still love NO for its ambience, and may someday return.

The Times Pic article is real-estate propaganda. Why don't reporter's do independent investigation, rather than merely report what agents say? Agents are after one thing only - sales at any price, to get their commission. To this end they'll mislead buyers AND sellers.

But back to the article: there WAS a bubble in NO. Just go to NO property-database on the internet and check the last registered selling price of a house, then compare it with todays asking price. Too often the new, asking, price is 50%, 60% or sometimes 100% more than the (for example) 2003 selling price. Something is very wrong here - it's called "flipping" and there are still plenty of people who are out for an easy fortune, but not too serious about selling otherwise. A huge number of homes have been on the market for literally years. The market in NO is frankly bogus, and for potential buyers, like myself, its just too boring dealing with what Alan Greenspan notoriously called "froth".